🛡️ Dagster AuthKit

Community authentication wrapper for self-hosted Dagster OSS.

Authentication, RBAC, and Audit logs for Dagster without touching internal code.

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🎯 What is this?

Dagster OSS has no auth. If you run it in a VPC or locally, anyone with the URL has full admin access.

AuthKit solves this by wrapping the dagster-webserver command to add:

• ✅ Login Interface: Simple username/password flow.
• ✅ RBAC (4 Levels): Granular control over who can do what.
• ✅ Audit Logs: JSON logs for monitoring who is doing what.
• ✅ Multi-Backend: Works with SQLite, Postgres, MySQL (via Peewee ORM) and Redis.

No code changes required. You don't touch your repository.py or dagster.yaml.

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✨ What's New in v0.4.0

🔐 Security Hardening (Breaking Changes)

• SECRET_KEY is now required in production. The server will refuse to start if DAGSTER_AUTH_SECRET_KEY is not set and DAGSTER_AUTH_ENV=production. Auto-generated keys caused silent session breakage in multi-pod deployments.
• Proxy mode now requires trusted IPs. Set DAGSTER_AUTH_PROXY_TRUSTED_IPS (comma-separated) or explicitly opt into the insecure default with DAGSTER_AUTH_PROXY_TRUST_ALL=true.
• RBAC is now deny-by-default for unknown mutations. New GraphQL mutations added by future Dagster releases require ADMIN role until explicitly audited. Configure via DAGSTER_AUTH_UNKNOWN_MUTATION_ROLE.

🔄 Cross-Pod Session Revocation

• DB-backed session_version column. change_password, change_role, and delete_user now invalidate sessions across ALL pods without Redis. A new session_version column is automatically added to existing databases on upgrade.
• Dual rate-limiting (username + IP). Prevents both credential stuffing and brute-force on a single account.

🛡️ Attack Surface Reduction

• CSRF protection on the login form (double-submit signed cookie).
• WebSocket authentication — GraphQL subscriptions at /graphql are now authenticated (pure ASGI middleware).
• XSS prevention in login and 403 pages via HTML escaping.
• Open redirect hardening — protocol-relative URLs (//evil.com) are blocked.
• Empty password rejection across all backends (prevents unauthenticated LDAP binds).

🏗️ Core Improvements

• operationName support in GraphQL RBAC. Clients sending multiple operations in one document no longer trigger false-positive blocks.
• Backend instance caching. Backend connections are reused across requests instead of being recreated per call.
• Unified role serialization. to_dict() now uses role.value (int) for cross-backend consistency.

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⚠️ Upgrading from v0.3.x

1. Set DAGSTER_AUTH_SECRET_KEY in your environment. Generate one with:

   python -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))'
   

2. If using proxy mode, set DAGSTER_AUTH_PROXY_TRUSTED_IPS to your proxy's IP address.
3. Database migration happens automatically on first boot — no manual steps needed for SQLite/Postgres/MySQL. A session_version column is added to the users table.
4. Role serialization changed from string ("ADMIN") to int (40) in session cookies. Existing sessions continue to work (backward-compatible from_dict).

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📂 Ready-to-Run Examples

We provide ready-to-use stacks for different scenarios in the examples/ directory:

examples
├── authelia              # NEW! Authelia + Caddy + LDAP SSO (Docker)
│   ├── Makefile
│   ├── docker-compose.yml
│   ├── Caddyfile
│   └── authelia/
├── kubernetes            # NEW! Minikube deployment
│   ├── Makefile
│   └── k8s/
├── ldap                  # Active Directory integration (**Experimental**)
│   ├── Makefile
│   ├── docker-compose.yml
│   └── ldap-bootstrap.ldif
├── postgresql_redis      # Recommended production setup
│   ├── Makefile
│   └── docker-compose.yml
└── quickstart-sqlite     # Simple local testing
    ├── Makefile
    └── docker-compose.yml

How to run

Pick a scenario, go into the folder, and check the Makefile.

1. Authelia SSO (Docker) Complete SSO with Authelia, Caddy, and OpenLDAP:

cd examples/authelia
make up
# Access: https://auth.company.com (admin/password123)
# Then:   https://dagster.company.com

2. Kubernetes (Minikube) Same stack running on Kubernetes:

cd examples/kubernetes
make build  # Build the Docker image inside Minikube
make up     # Deploy everything
# In another terminal: make connect (runs minikube tunnel)
# Add to /etc/hosts: $(minikube ip) auth.company.com dagster.company.com

3. Standard Setup (Postgres + Redis)

cd examples/postgresql_redis
make up

4. Local Quickstart (SQLite)

cd examples/quickstart-sqlite
make up

5. LDAP/AD Testing ⚠️ EXPERIMENTAL

cd examples/ldap
make up

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🚀 Manual Installation (Python)

If you aren't using Docker, you can install via pip.

# For local testing (SQLite)
pip install dagster-authkit[sqlite]

# For server usage (Postgres + Redis recommended)
pip install dagster-authkit[postgresql,redis]

# For LDAP/Active Directory integration (**Experimental**)
pip install dagster-authkit[ldap]

Usage:

# Initialize the database and create the first admin
dagster-authkit init-db --with-admin

# Run Dagster (replaces the standard 'dagster-webserver' command)
dagster-authkit -f your_pipeline.py -h 0.0.0.0 -p 3000

# For proxy mode (Authelia/OAuth2 Proxy)
export DAGSTER_AUTH_BACKEND=proxy
export DAGSTER_AUTH_PROXY_LOGIN_URL=https://auth.yourcompany.com
dagster-authkit -f your_pipeline.py -h 0.0.0.0 -p 3000

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🔐 Roles (RBAC)

We provide 4 levels of access. Permissions are enforced via GraphQL query analysis.

Role	Description
Admin	Full access. Can manage users, settings, and all pipelines.
Editor	Can modify assets and codebase (if allowed) and manage runs.
Launcher	Can launch runs and re-execute jobs, but cannot modify code/assets.
Viewer	Read-only. Can view runs and assets. GraphQL mutations are blocked.

How it works: AuthKit analyzes GraphQL queries using the official GraphQL parser to accurately identify mutations and block unauthorized actions.

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📦 Backends

Backend	Implementation	Status	Use Case
SQLite	Peewee ORM	Stable	Local / Simple. Single instance only.
PostgreSQL	Peewee + psycopg2	Stable	Production. Recommended for Docker/K8s.
MySQL/MariaDB	Peewee + mysql-connector	Stable	Production.
Redis	Native redis	Stable	Session Storage + Distributed Rate Limiting.
LDAP	ldap3 library	Experimental	Active Directory / OpenLDAP. Community maintained.
Proxy	Header-based	Stable	Authelia, OAuth2 Proxy, Traefik, Caddy.
OpenID Connect	Header-based	Experimental	AuthKit supports OIDC providers (Google, GitHub, Okta, Keycloak) via Authelia

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🛠️ CLI Management

Manage users directly from the shell. Useful for CI/CD or admin tasks.

# Create a new launcher
dagster-authkit add-user bob --role launcher

# Reset password
dagster-authkit change-password bob

# List everyone
dagster-authkit list-users

# View RBAC permissions matrix
dagster-authkit list-permissions

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🔮 Roadmap

Current (v0.4.0)

• ✅ Username/password auth (bcrypt)
• ✅ 4-level RBAC (ADMIN/EDITOR/LAUNCHER/VIEWER)
• ✅ SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis support
• ✅ GraphQL mutation blocking with official AST parser
• ✅ LDAP backend (experimental)
• ✅ Proxy authentication (Authelia, Caddy, Traefik)
• ✅ Kubernetes example with full SSO stack
• ✅ Redis session revocation and rate limiting
• ✅ Centralized UI templates
• ✅ CSRF protection
• ✅ Cross-pod session revocation (DB-backed session_version)
• ✅ WebSocket authentication (GraphQL subscriptions)
• ✅ Dual rate-limiting (username + IP)
• ✅ Proxy trusted IP allowlist

Next

• 🔄 Helm chart for Kubernetes deployments
• 🔄 OIDC backend (beyond proxy mode)

What we will NOT do:

• ❌ Inject React code into Dagster UI (too brittle)
• ❌ Complex enterprise features (that's what Dagster+ is for)

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🤝 Contributing

Found a bug? Want to add a feature? Open a PR. If it works and keeps things simple, we'll merge it.

Especially needed:

• People with Active Directory experience to validate the LDAP backend
• Testing on different Dagster versions
• Helm chart contributions

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📄 License

Apache 2.0 - see LICENSE

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🙏 Credits

Built by Demetrius Albuquerque because self-hosting Dagster shouldn't mean no auth.

Inspired by the community's need for a middle ground between "no auth" and "pay for Dagster+".